Raad van Europa stuurt waarnemers naar verkiezingen Albanië (en)

Strasbourg, 30.06.2005 - A 15-member delegation of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE), headed by Jerzy Smorawinski (Poland/EPP), will observe the parliamentary elections to be held in Albania on 3 July 2005.

The parliamentarians will arrive in Tirana on 30 June to meet with party leaders, the Chair of the Central Electoral Commission, journalists and NGOs. On election day, they will be deployed in the capital and in towns around the country.

The observation will be carried out in the framework of an International Election Observation Mission (IEOM), composed of delegations from the Council of Europe and OSCE Parliamentary Assemblies, the European Parliament and the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE/ODIHR).

A pre-election delegation from PACE which visited the country from 30 May to 1 June 2005 said in a statement that the main conditions are in place for democratic elections in Albania. However the truly democratic conduct of elections - in line with commitments Albania subscribed to when it joined the Council of Europe - depends now on the political will of the authorities and parties participating in these elections.

The delegation will be accompanied by an expert from the Venice Commission, the Council of Europe's group of legal experts, which made recommendations on the electoral law and the electoral administration in Albania in October 2004.

List of members of the delegation:

Ruhi Açikgöz (Turkey/EDG)*

Abdulkadir Ateş (Turkey/SOC)

Bo_idar Bojović (Serbia & Montenegro/EPP/CD)

Josette Durrieu (France/SOC)

Alexander Fomenko (Russia/UEL)

Valery Grebennikov (Russia/EDG)

Andreas Gross (Switzerland/SOC)

Xhevdet Nasufi (former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia/EDG)

Morten Ostergaard (Denmark/ALDE)*

Fatma Pehlivan (Belgium/SOC)

Leo Platvoet i (Netherlands/UEL)*

Johannes Randegger (Switzerland/ALDE)

Jerzy Smorawinski (Poland/EPP/CD) *

Lord John Tomlinson (United Kingdom/SOC)

Egidijus Vareikis (Lithuania/EPP/CD)

(The members marked with an asterisk were part of the pre-election delegation.)

A joint press conference is provisionally scheduled on 4 July at 4 pm in the Tirana International Hotel.

Contact: Assembly Secretariat, Bas Klein, Tel. + 33 6 62 26 54 89